Experimental Examination of the Motion of a Tethered System with Large Deformation and Large Displacement

In this paper, experiments on the motion of a tethered system with large deformation and large displacement are discussed. A tethered subsatellite in space environment is a well-known example of this system. However, even fundamental experiments on the motion of the tethered system have not been conducted. Also, from the viewpoint of flexible multibody dynamics, it is expected that simple experiments for the motion of a very flexible body should be completed first in order to verify the validity of the proposed approach. In this study, the tethered system consists of a very flexible body and a rigid body. First, we conducted an experiment on the fundamental motion of a very flexible body with an attached mass in gravity space. We selected steel and rubber as tether materials. In the experimental results, the characteristics of the complex motion of a very flexible body were obtained. Second, an experiment in microgravity space was done. The coupled motion between the very flexible body and rigid body was investigated. It was verified that the motion of the system with large deformation is excited in microgravity space, and there is the coupling motion between the deflection of the very flexible body and the rotation of the rigid body.